First Time Refill Hobbicolors, faded prints?

[x101xtreme]

Hi, I've just recently tried refilling my oem cartridges on a canon ip4500 based on the information in this forum, and I'm having trouble getting the refilled colors to match my OEM prints.

Printer: canon ip4500
Ink: Hobbicolors UW-8
Refill Method: top fill after purging cartridges and drying them for several days with the paper towel method
Paper Settings: canon photo paper plus glossy
Paper in the Tray: Costco Kirkland glossy photo paper

I printed several nossle checks, and all of them looked fine with no banding.

For some reason, the hobbicolor prints look less saturated and faded compared to the OEM. This is most pronounced on daytime pictures with green grass. The grass is lighter and almost pastel colored.
I was able to get the colors pretty close using the manual color adjustment, but then when I printed a different picture of a sunset, the photo came out too dark. So far, I haven't found a way to get all the photos to look as good as they did before I switched inks.

Will a custom profile work better with the hobbicolor ink, or should I try a different brand of ink like precision colors?
I was initially hoping that the refill would match my oem ink well enough so that I just use the same driver settings I've used before.

Does someone have an ICC profile for the UW-8 and costco kirkland paper that they might be willing to share with me?

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

Maybe your ink was diluted with a little water. Others have had more experience than I have with this, but I have to wonder if the sponges might have been damp enough to significantly dilute the ink. Could there still be as much as a gram or two of water left? It wouldn't surprise me.

 

[x101xtreme]

Well, I thought that at first, so I took a second set of cartridges and did the same thing but made sure to let them dry for several days. The colors aren't exactly faded, but there is definitely less contrast and slight differences in the shades of blue and yellow.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

"Dry for several days." I've heard that one before, but it's drying through a little hole. People around here claim they are dry at that point, but I haven't ever seen evidence from anyone who weighed the cartridge or actually evaluated the water content in any way.

I can tell you what I did the first time, before I tested inks. I refilled the sponge with about 4 mL, then I emptied the cartridge and refilled again. I know at least one other person does it that way. It's a cheap way of being certain.

Or it could be the ink. Who knows? I can tell you for what it's worth that my experience with Image Specialists ink is that their ink is an incredibly good match for HP ink, but of course, you have a different printer. Too bad Canon and Hobbicolors people haven't chimed in.

 

[x101xtreme]

Good suggestion. I'll try emptying the cartridge and refilling again (without purging this time) to see if it makes a difference.

 

[The Hat]

ThrillaMozilla Too bad Canon and Hobbicolors people haven't chimed in.

You are doing such a good job I didnt think you need any assistance besides you were spot on with your diagnosis.

Hobbicolor ink tends to be more saturated than I.S. inks so their colours should be brighter and
certainly not washed out so something else was causing the problem.

x101xtreme I'll try emptying the cartridge and refilling again

If you need to dry out your cartridges in an hour instead of days then try ghwellsjrs method
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=34175#p34175

 

[x101xtreme]

Thanks for all the replies. I think I may have been a little unclear as to what I meant when I said that the prints were faded.

So, to clarify:
1. ghwellsjr's method was the method I used to dry out the cartridges. The first time, I used his method with the paper towels, and then refilled right after. These were the prints that looked faded.

2. So on my second attempt, I purged the cartridges again and used the paper towel method to dry out the carts to the point where the sponge was completely white, and then left them in front of a fan for a couple days. When I tested these out, the prints were no longer faded, but the contrast, color accuracy, and detail was still inferior compared to the oem inks. The black areas on the photos looked more gray, and the purple in the evening sky looked more like dark blue.

3. On my 3rd try, I emptied the cartridges by opening the vent and allowing the ink to drip out. I then refilled the cartridges WITHOUT purging them and printed the pictures again. However the pictures looked almost identical to the ones I printed on my second try. In conclusion, the prints are acceptable, but noticeable worse than the OEM prints.

I guess my question is how close to the OEM prints should I expect with these refills? And will a custom profile be necessary if I want the best color accuracy?
I know that precision colors has a couple ICC profiles available for download on their site if you buy their inks. So I'm debating between sticking with the ink I have now and paying to get it profiled, or trying out precision colors ink and downloading their profile from their website.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

?? It's hard to know exactly what's going on, but the vent should be open for all these procedures. It's a lot harder to get ink (or water) out if the vent isn't open.

Also, your #3 leaves me uncertain about what you did. The ink should not drip out unless the cartridge is overfilled, and there will be plenty of ink left after it stops dripping. If you did empty them by ghwells' method, and then refill them without purging, and you still got lackluster prints, then I guess it's probably the ink that just isn't giving you the results that you are expecting.

 

[x101xtreme]

Well, the vent I'm referring to is the one I drilled above the reservoir. The hobbicolors ink came with a rubber plug which you're supposed to use to seal the hole after the refilling process. If the hole is unplugged, the ink drips out of the bottom hole with the sponge. I simply opened the hole, allowed the reservoir to drain and drip out of the bottom, then refilled and replaced the rubber plug.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

I see. That's the fill hole, not a vent. I suppose that procedure might still leave some water in the sponge, but the case for dilution is getting weaker.